


Compromises

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Blood, Consensual Mutilation, M/M, Religious Themes, Spoilers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 20:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: After two hundred and eighty-six days underground, Joseph comes to his room and hands him a knife.





	Compromises

After two hundred and eighty-six days underground, Joseph comes to Rook's room and hands him a knife. He does it easily, as if this is something he's done before, with someone else, someone who wasn't Rook. Probably someone he trusted. He hands Rook the knife like he's supposed to know what it means.

"What am I supposed to do with this," Rook asks carefully. Whatever it is, he guarantees he's not going to like it.

"I need you to mark me," Joseph says.

"To mark you?" No, he definitely doesn't like it. The way Joseph says it, like it's something necessary, and not a fucking mutilation.

But considering they may be the last two people for God knows how many miles, getting along without killing each other had quickly become something of a priority.

Joseph has a room which is officially 'the church.' Rook attends his boring sermons, and in return Joseph lets him listen to Dutch's music, rather than destroying every record he owns.

Joseph gets to take care of the fish, Rook gets to sit by the radio (which has given nothing but automated broadcasts since the world ended.)

Joseph's in charge of the food, Rook cleans up. Water and power they take care of in shifts.

Anything Rook does that Joseph doesn't like, gets included less than subtly in the weekly sermons (and honestly the one about masturbation had almost been worth it.)

When Joseph shuts himself in the church, Rook leaves him alone, and he never knows whether there's going to be loud, angry praying, or if Joseph is just going to make noises like he's being cored open, for hours. Rook leaves him to the religious mania that drives him. But once it's quiet he'll go in, coax Joseph off the floor, make him eat something, and guide him to bed.

Rook doesn't mock Joseph's very fucked-up interpretation of his own religion, and he doesn't wake up being straddled by a crazy man holding a knife.

Compromises. It's all very fucking civilised.

This, this it seems is going to be another compromise. But Rook isn't sure anything he gets out of it will be worth it. He was hoping to keep the worst of Joseph's brittle, self-destructive impulses on his side of the bunker. But Joseph seems to do his best to try and include him in every bit of madness that he creates. If Rook tried to fight that all the time the exhaustion would kill him.

Joseph is all serene stillness, as if whatever is coming he thinks he deserves it. And maybe worse, that he trusts Rook to mete it out. Rook knows that if he refuses Joseph will simply carve his way into his own skin. The level of punishment will depend entirely on his mood at the time, and Rook doesn't think he can allow that.

He sighs.

"What am I writing," he says tightly, anger curling underneath everything he wants to say but doesn't. He pushes it down, because it's not going to help him now.

"Lust," Joseph says simply.

Rook frowns. Because that's not what he was expecting. He was expecting Wrath, or maybe Sloth?

"You're trapped in a bunker underground, and that's your problem. Who are you -" Rook stops, turns the knife very slightly until he can see his own reflection in it. He looks up, curious what he's going to find.

Joseph says nothing at all. He doesn't really need to. Well, aren't you a big, cliched ball of crazy, Rook thinks.

Hell, maybe four letters is easier anyway.

"And where exactly am I laying this pronouncement of sin?" Because there are already scars over scars on Joseph's skin.

"Wherever you wish, it doesn't matter," Joseph says simply.

Doesn't fucking matter.

"I thought writing it was the punishment, the reminder that you've sinned, to yourself and everyone else. So you could work on atoning."

"It is," Joseph agrees.

"But it's not like you've actually done anything to earn it. You haven't actually sinned." Rook frowns up at him.

He finds himself watching Joseph's throat flex on a swallow. Which is...which is definitely _something_.

Well, fuck.

"Or maybe you have?" he says faintly.

Rook pictures it, can't help but picture it. It's not like he's never thought about it himself. They've been alone together for what feels like forever, circling each other most of the time with some stifling blend of antagonism, wariness and madness. It's been long enough since anyone has touched Rook like that, and Joseph likes to touch people, constantly, invasively. So, yes, Rook has done more than think about it. The fact that Joseph has as well, that's he's done more than think about it. That actually surprises him.

"Did you feel guilty during, or just after?" he wonders.

Rook hadn't felt guilty.

"Don't," Joseph says quietly.

"Don't you have to confess?" Rook asks, and maybe it's half curiousity, half a vindictive need to make Joseph talk about it. But it's also an honest question. Because John had been very adamant about that part. To the point of violence and madness. "Isn't that the point?"

Joseph's expression is suddenly focused, something simmers in his narrowed eyes And then he looks away, stares at the wall.

"Both," he says simply.

"Because you're not supposed to?" Rook asks. He's not a hundred percent sure what the hard and fast rules are. He hasn't read the book Joseph wrote, hunched over at the back of the bunker, whispering quietly and intensely to himself. He hasn't read the book Joseph wrote for him either. That he'd left for Rook on his bed, page after page of tight handwriting.

Joseph meets Rook's eyes again, and now his expression is so complicated that Rook couldn't guess at what he's really feeling.

"You are my child," Joseph reminds him. "I am your Father."

Which is...not in any way true, but Rook doesn't know exactly how it works in Joseph's complicated, twisted brain.

"But we're not actually related, or in any sort of familial relationship, unlike everyone else you'd been sharing space with for the last few years."

"You are mine to protect, mine to shepherd, mine to guide into the future," Joseph explains. There's an angry twist to his mouth now, words harsher, every one bitten out between his teeth.

"Hmm," Rook says, rather than agree with that.

"You are not mine to -" The words choke to a stop, as if he's unwilling to continue.

"Not yours to lust after?" Rook finishes, which still seems an amusingly old-fashioned turn of phrase.

Joseph nods sharply, exhaling like he hadn't wanted to voice it out loud.

"And yet that's what you've been doing, isn't it?" Rook pushes.

There's shudder and Joseph reaches forward, circles the wrist of the hand that holds the knife and squeezes it pointedly.

"Please," Joseph says. Which is a word Rook isn't sure he's ever heard from him before. He's not sure he can refuse it.

Rook sighs, moves his leg out of the way and slides back on the bed, then gestures at the space.

"Sit down."

Joseph seems relieved. He seats himself at the edge, leaves his back within reach. Rook doesn't move for a long moment, left considering the mess that the world has made of Joseph from far too close. Top right hand side it is then.

He draws the towel from beside the bed, lays it over Joseph's other shoulder.

Rook eyes the length of the knife. Considers what he's about to do.

"You sterilized this, right? The first aid kit has to last." An infection is the last thing he wants to deal with.

Joseph gives a long, slow nod. His skin, where Rook flattens his hand, is cooler than he expects. There's nowhere to spread his fingers without encountering violence.

"Do you think about hurting me?" Rook asks, curiously.

Joseph's fingers curl and uncurl on his thighs. Rook doesn't think he's going to answer. Doesn't think he wants to admit to any more.

"Sometimes," Joseph says finally, thickly, as if he's ashamed.

Rook knows the first part is going to be the hardest, so he lays the knife against skin and lets it slide hard enough to draw blood. He starts careful work on the 'L.' Joseph doesn't even tense under the bite of the knife. It's not going to be as deep as Joseph wants, he already knows that. It might even fade to nothing once it heals. But he handed the knife to Rook, so it's his choice.

"Did you like it," Rook asks quietly.

"Yes," Joseph says, and that answer is surprisingly easy, it barely merits a pause. His voice is thinner now, soft, and his eyes are shut. If Rook slid his arm around and touched him, he thinks he'd find Joseph hard. Which is an unexpectedly appealing thought, something Rook realises slowly that he wants, the thought of it rolling around in his head, gathering substance. It leaves him breathing against Joseph's back for a long second.

That's the thing about bringing things into the light. Suddenly everyone can see them.

"I'm not John," Rook says quietly. "And I'm not Jacob. I don't have a speech for you about weakness, or atonement, or pain. You already know that whatever you need from this, I can't give it to you."

Rook adjusts the stretch of Joseph's shoulder, uses the towel to wipe his blood out of the way, while he forms the careful, awkward lines of the 'S.'

"But I am here. You brought me here, you made that choice, so now we're going to be here together, for a long time, and neither of us has anyone else." Til death do us part, Rook thinks to himself. "And fine, maybe that doesn't excuse it, in your head. But we're human beings, and we need companionship. You can't punish yourself every time. No one has that much skin."

The word is already dribbling fine lines of red, it's much starker than Rook hoped it would be. He finishes the final line of the T'. It's raw and unhappy, not as straight as he would like. His carving-words-into-people skills are understandably not up to Joseph's usual standard. If he'd had John here, they could have bled each other until doomsday.

Only...perhaps that already came.

Rook curls a hand round Joseph's waist, fingers pressing in deep, holding Joseph still. Joseph inhales, one quick pull of air, but he doesn't try and twist out of his grip.

"We need people to touch us, Joseph, or we go mad," Rook says quietly. Because he thinks that's why Joseph brought the knife to him. Rook doesn't touch him. It's all about letting Joseph into his space, allowing the grasp of warm hands on his face, or his wrists, or his arm. The way he presses their foreheads together, and murmurs his name like Rook has shared a secret. Rook thought he was allowing it grudgingly, reluctantly. But he's been allowing it, and it's become something like intimacy. He realises how much he would miss it if Joseph stopped.

Rook sets the knife down on the bed, lays that hand on the other side of Joseph's waist, and then very slowly leans into him.

"Do you want me to touch you?" he asks simply. Because they are going to be here a long time, and Joseph knows that, he has to know that.

"Giving in to sin is a weakness," Joseph says. It's thin and quiet, but it's firm.

"Yeah, and suffering alone in silence is a miserable way to live," Rook mutters. But he lets his hands slide away, stops touching him, stops _tempting_ him. Because maybe that is a madness too far. "I'm going to get some gauze and some tape, you may not care about your wellbeing, but I do, wait here."

Rook unfolds his knee, goes to get up - and finds Joseph's fingers tight round his wrist.

Joseph doesn't say anything, he doesn't ask. Rook doesn't think he can. There's a frown, cut through with something lost, something brittle.

Rook doesn't say anything either, he sinks back down, leans in slowly, he lets Joseph choose whether to pull away.

But he doesn't. So Rook kisses him.

There's no tension, just the faintest tilt of head, the unexpected softness of Joseph's mouth.

It almost feels too easy in the end, Joseph's hand relaxes on his wrist, fingers spreading open, and Rook surprises himself by catching them, and letting them tangle with his own.

Joseph's other hand curves over the back of his head, in a way that's used to pulling people in - but not like this, not guilty and indulgent. Joseph's fingers dig in his hair, curl tight. His beard is a strangely foreign sensation. But his mouth is warm and half-open now, clumsy in its need.

"Please," Joseph says at last.

Rook squirms a hand between them, and he was right, Joseph is hard in his jeans, uncomfortably tight under fabric. Rook undoes Joseph's belt and unzips him. He feels the flare of shocked air against his mouth when the back of his hand drags over the hard line of Joseph's cock. The breathy murmur that doesn't know whether to be lust or denial.

There's a moment that hangs, where Joseph breathes into his mouth and whispers something too low to catch, conflicted and desperate. But then Joseph sighs, forehead pressing gently against Rook's, and he doesn't protest when Rook's hand draws him out, fingers sliding carefully around him.

Joseph's other hand spreads on Rook's thigh, fingers tight and hot through the material. But he doesn't move it any further, though his fingertips dig, tiny flexes of sensation that Rook feels all the way through him. It's an awkward angle for both of them, and Rook wants more than this. His other hand eases Joseph's thigh outwards, just a little, so he can get his fingers deeper, can work Joseph slowly, hand tightening gradually, testingly.

Rook watches it, watches Joseph's cock slip-shove through the curl of his fingers, breath shaking out of him, until Joseph pulls his head up and kisses him, doesn't stop kissing him, and Rook can feel every shaken, breathless noise Joseph makes against his mouth.

Rook's hard as well now, trapped tight inside his own pants, an insistent throb of weight and need. Joseph's fingertips are so fucking close, it would be so easy to catch his hand, draw it higher and press it down over his cock. Rook thinks about it, thinks about it and _wants_ it, but he doesn't do it. Still can't help but wonder if that will ever happen. If Joseph will touch him like this, or whether this is a moment of fucking weakness, never to be repeated - and the thought makes something clench unpleasantly inside him.

Joseph's next exhale catches in his throat, falls out in noisy pieces. His fingers tighten in Rook's hair, and then he's coming over Rook's fingers and wrist, sudden and warm.

Rook tilts his head to watch it happen, throat stuck tight with how unexpectedly filthy that feels, with how much he _likes_ it. He works Joseph slowly through every second of it, feeling the twitch of his fingers, and the stilted push of him. Until he's just breathing softly into Rook's mouth.

Rook's other hand is curled over Joseph's on his leg, and at some point their fingers have slipped between each other's again.

Joseph doesn't pull away after, he leaves his weight against Rook, hand shifting slowly at the back of his neck. He's curved enough that Rook can see the fine lines of red trailing down his back

Rook doesn't know if there'll be guilt later, or the score of new words on Joseph's skin, words he didn't let Rook carve there.

Or maybe there'll be a new compromise instead. One that Rook thinks he can live with.


End file.
